Wednesday, May 05, 2010

2nd Annual South Bend Sings for Labor, Monday May 10, 8:30 p.m. Fiddler’s Hearth,

Get a head start on celebrating next year's campus theme "The Meaning of Work" at the 2nd Annual South Bend Sings for Labor, Monday, May 10, 8:30 p.m. at Fiddler's Hearth 127 North Main Street, South Bend.

Sponsored by Labor Studies-IUSB, St. Joe Jobs with Justice, and Michiana Social Forum, the event features local singers singing traditional labor songs. Enjoy a great evening of wonderful music!

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Professor Emeritus John Lewis to Discuss Next Year’s One Book, One Campus, Tuesday April 13, noon

Interested in learning about the history and background of next year’s One Book, One Campus title The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx? Please join us for a Table Talk discussion with Professor Emeritus John Lewis on Tuesday April 13, from noon to 1 p.m. in the Quiet Lounge in the Grille. Dr. Lewis will discuss background information on Marx and 1848, the Manifesto itself, as well as how the term “communist” has changed from Marx’s time to ours. After his initial remarks, the discussion will be open for audience questions.

From 1973 until his retirement in 2005, Dr. Lewis was a member of the Department of Political Science at Indiana University South Bend. His major teaching and research interests are in the field of United States politics, with a special emphasis on the American presidency. From 1990 to 1998 and again from 1999 to 2002, he was the chair of the Department of Political Science. In 1998-99, he was Acting Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. In 1990 he received IUSB’s Distinguished Teaching Award, and in 1991 he received Indiana University’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching. In 1996, he received Indiana University’s W. George Pinnell Award for Outstanding Service. From 2000 to 2003 he was Director of Academic Advising in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and in 2005 received the College’s Outstanding Advisor Award.

The goal of One Book, One Campus is to encourage critical thought and discussion among students, faculty, and staff through literature. Specifically, through the reading and discussion of a new work each academic year, we aim to increase the IU South Bend community’s capacity for open-minded pursuit of new ideas. As we finish up this year’s discussion of Alex Kotlowitz’s There Are No Children Here and the campus theme of “The Urban and the Rural,” we hope this table talk begins the transition to discussion about next year’s title and campus theme “The Meaning of Work.”

If anyone is interested in leading book discussions or planning an event related to next year's title, please contact Julie Elliott at 520-4410 or

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The Winner of 2010-2011 One Book, One Campus: The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx.

This is the first One Book, One Campus winner suggested by a student. Written in 1848, The Communist Manifesto is a work that has not only influenced scholarship, but also history. While we do not live in a communist society predicted by Marx, his ideas shaped international relations in the twentieth century, U.S. labor policy, and remain a guiding force in literary criticism. One of the most influential works of the past two centuries, it is also a work that is frequently misunderstood. Reading The Communist Manifesto and taking part in campus events related to it will allow for a better understanding of a significant work that can be discussed in a variety of courses.

A key thing to stress is the importance of meaningful, critical, discussion of the work throughout the year. The goal of One Book, One Campus is to encourage critical thought and discussion among students, faculty, and staff through literature. Specifically, through the reading and discussion of a new work each academic year, we aim to increase the IU South Bend community’s capacity for open-mindedness and the pursuit of new ideas. The student who nominated the work, Jacob Jones described the Manifesto, and our goals for One Book, One Campus when he noted: “it is important to understand that having a campus book is not an endorsement of an idea, merely the understanding of one.”

Additional information about the book can be found at: library.iusb.edu/onebook/manifesto.shtml.

If anyone is interested in leading book discussions or planning an event related to next year's title, please contact Julie Elliott at 520-4410 or

Thanks again to Dan O'Bryant of Information Technologies for setting up the voting system.

Friday, March 05, 2010

One Book, One Campus--Vote for next year’s book!

Voting is currently underway for next year's One Book, One Campus. Have a say in what book the campus reads next year. The finalists are:

1. The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work by Arlie Hochschild
2. The Betrayal of Work: How Low-Wage Jobs Fail 30 Million Americans by Beth Shulman
3. Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Both Sides by David Bacon
4. Studs Terkel's Working: A Graphic Adaptation by Harvey Pekar and Paul Buhle
5. Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet by Howard Gardner, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, & William Damon
6. The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx

To vote, visit https://cf.iusb.edu/onebookvote/ and login using your IU South Bend login and passphrase.

Voting ends 9 p.m. Friday, March 12.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Suggestions for One Book, One Campus 2010-2011 Due Friday, midnight

The Campus Theme for 2010-2011 is tentatively titled "The Meaning of Work."

The One Book, One Campus Committee needs your help in suggesting books related to this theme for consideration for next year's One Book, One Campus title.

Criteria to keep in mind when suggesting potential titles are:

Is the title still in print and available in paperback?
Would the title have a wide-appeal to students in a variety of disciplines?
Can a connection be made to the title and the campus theme?
Is the book under 350 pages long?

The One Book, One Campus Committee wants to hear from you. Contact Julie Elliott at with your suggestions. Interested in what has been suggested so far? http://library.iusb.edu/onebook/suggestions0910.shtml.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

One Book, One Campus 2010-2011: Your Suggestions Needed!

The campus theme for 2010-2011 is "The Meaning of Work."

The One Book, One Campus Committee needs your help in suggesting books related to this theme for consideration for next year's One Book, One Campus title.

Criteria to keep in mind when suggesting potential titles are:

Is the title still in print and available in paperback?
Would the title have a wide-appeal to students in a variety of disciplines?
Can a connection be made to the title and the campus theme?
Is the book under 350 pages long?

Please e-mail your suggested titles to Julie Elliott at by January 29. More information can be found here.

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Podcast interview of Alex Kotlowitz Answering IU South Bend Student Questions now Available

Attended Monday's lecture and find yourself wanting more Alex Kotlowitz? Listen to IU South Bend Political Science professor Steven Gerencser interview Kotlowitz (questions asked were written by IU South Bend students from a variety of classes). Interview is approximately 21 minutes long and is available here.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Oprah television movie of There Are No Children Here available at Schurz Library for 2-hour checkout

Wondering if the story of the Rivers' family was ever made into a movie? In 1993, Oprah Winfrey starred as LaJoe in a television movie version of There Are No Children Here. While it has long been out of print in the United States, the Schurz Library was able to obtain a copy in the European PAL format and have it transferred into a format viewable for United States DVD players. The DVD is 91 minutes long and is available at the Schurz Library circulation desk for a 2-hour reserve checkout. Want to watch the film but do not have time to check it out, take it home, and view it? Try watching it in the AV Nook in the new Dorene Dwyer Hammes Media Commons and Café!

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Looking to Read More Alex Kotlowitz? Try The Other Side of the River, Set in Michigan

Finished There Are No Children Here and now find yourself wanting to read more Alex Kotlowitz? The Schurz Library also owns his 1998 book The Other Side of the River, which is set in Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, Michigan. The call number for the book is (please check IUCAT for availability): F574.S26 K68 1998.

Friday, October 09, 2009

One Book, One Campus is now on Facebook

One Book, One Campus now has a facebook presence. Become a fan today to receive updates on news and links related to the issues raised in There Are No Children Here.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Alex Kotlowitz, Author of 2009-2010 One Book, One Campus Title to Speak at IU South Bend November 2

Alex Kotlowitz, author of next year's One Book, One Campus title There Are No Children Here, will be speaking at IU South Bend at 7 p.m. November 2. The event will be held in Northside 158. A reception and book signing will follow.

The event is a co-Campus Theme/Schurz Library Speaker Series event.

There Are No Children Here is the story of two boys, Pharoah and Lafayette Rivers, who grew up in the Henry Horner Homes, a Chicago public housing project in the late 1980s. It won the Helen B. Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism, among other awards. The book was chosen by the New York Public Library as one of the 150 most important books of the 20th Century. Kotlowitz is currently the writer-in-residence at Northwestern University.

The campus theme for 2009-2010 is the Urban and the Rural. The theme description is as follows:

The urban versus the rural, the center versus the periphery, Wall Street versus Main Street, red state versus blue state, capital versus province, small town versus big city, the elite versus the folk, town versus gown, the cosmopolitan versus the bucolic, the sophisticated versus the simple. These geographical and cultural conflicts have become commonplace ways of dividing polities, economies, and societies. Although we find these conflicts in America today, some of them are rooted in earlier disputes, such as the conflict between town and country in eighteenth-century England; and similar clashes appear over the globe and throughout history.

One recent example could be seen in the United States political campaign of 2008, with its clash over the definition of American values and the people who supposedly embody them: where is the real America and is its future best represented by small town life and "Joe the Plumber" or is it better reflected in urban and educational centers?

While we might be familiar with this latest instance of this conflict, it is merely one more in a centuries’ long debate about differing values, lives lived, and problems faced in urban areas as opposed to small towns and rural areas.

The campus theme holds up these distinctions for consideration, reflecting on where they might be helpful and when they are distractions, even disingenuous. This theme can be addressed in economics, culture, racial and ethnic challenges, demographics, health-care, education, the arts, religion, and even public policy regarding scientific research. Finally, the theme encourages consideration of how demographic and technological changes such as the growth of suburbs and exurbs, the internet, globalization of the economy and environmental damage, challenge the meaning and value of these types of distinctions.

The Schurz Library Speaker Series provides speakers of intellectual interest to the university and the community on topics related to the campus theme. All Schurz Library Speaker events are free and open to the public.

Friday, April 10, 2009

One Book, One Campus 2009-2010 Winner: There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz

Thank you to everyone who voted for the 2008-2009 One Book, One Campus title.
The winner is: There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz.

Information about this book can be found at: http://www.iusb.edu/~libg/onebook/children.shtml

If anyone is interested in leading book discussions on next year's title, please contact Julie Elliott at 520-4410 or

Thanks again to Dan O'Bryant of Information Technologies for setting up the voting system.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Have a Say in Choosing Next Year’s One Book, One Campus Title! Vote Ends April 8

Voting is currently underway for the 2009-2010 One Book, One Campus title and will end at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, April 8.

The address for voting is: https://cf.iusb.edu/onebookvote/


To vote, you will need to use your IU South Bend login and password.


Thank you to Dan O'Bryant of Information Technologies for setting up the voting system.


This year's nominees are (click on the links for more information about the nominees):

Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler

There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz

The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture by Wendell Berry

Where We Live: Essays About Indiana edited by David Hoppe

Friday, April 18, 2008

First Draft of Darwin’s Origin of Species Now Available Online

From BBC News:

Draft notes which eventually became Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species are now available online at The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online, a site managed by the Cambridge University Library. In addition to all editions of The Origin of Species, the site also contains the largest collection of Darwin's private papers and letters, and diaries and journals he kept while aboard the Beagle. More materials will be added to the site soon. The url for the site is: http://darwin-online.org.uk/.

Thanks to Dr. Andrew Schnabel for the link.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

One Book, One Campus 2008-2009: The Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin

Thank you to everyone who voted for the 2008-2009 One Book, One Campus title.
The winner is: The Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin.

Information about this book can be found at: http://www.iusb.edu/~libg/onebook/darwin.shtml

If anyone is interested in leading book discussions on next year's title, please contact Julie Elliott at 520-4410 or

Thanks again to Dan O'Bryant of Information Technologies for setting up the voting system.